Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(52)

He stepped into the classroom, daunted but ready, and started working his ass off to learn another language.

Six years later, at age twenty-four, he was fluent. During those six years, he and Annalise had lost touch, but by the time he was done with school, on his own, serving his country, he was ready to find his way back to her.

He tracked her down and sent her the letter. Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer.

He didn’t have to turn to Google to translate his heart.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


She sat up in bed, staring at him like he’d skydived in from another planet and landed kaput on her bed.

“Michael?” She raised an eyebrow.

He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Yeah?”

“Did you just have a conversation with me in French?”

His shoulders tightened, and he silently cursed himself. There was no denying it. He’d done nothing wrong, but he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t said those things. Not just the whole I’m crazy for you declaration, but after she’d said, “Yes, like that, just like that,” every single word that tumbled from his lips had been in French.

“Not a whole conversation. Just a few words,” he said, desperately trying to sidestep.

“How did you know what to say?”

His heart slammed against his chest. He didn’t want to tell her. Not yet. He didn’t want to expose himself like this. He didn’t want to reveal the full extent of what he’d done for her. That his desire to find her again, to be with her again, had driven him to learn a whole new language. “Just a few words. That’s all,” he said, then glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “You have an early flight. Let’s get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said in a strained voice.

He turned out the light. “Come here. Come closer,” he murmured, and wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m already close.”

She snuggled into him, giving in on this count.

“Closer still,” he said.

“Michael,” she said, her tone pleading as she pressed her warm body to his, skin to skin.

He kissed her hair. “Not now.”

“I want to know.”

“Just let me hold you.”

She sighed, relenting as she wriggled closer, giving in. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“For taking my picture.”

He smiled into her neck and kissed her there, inhaling her scent. Tonight she was rain and sex and him. “I want you to be happy. Tell me you won’t regret this. Or me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t regret you. I could never regret you. But I want to know—”

He whispered into her hair. “Shhh…”

He just couldn’t go there tonight. He would break.

*

His breathing evened out, and soon he was asleep. She stared at the bright green letters on the hotel clock. After midnight. She had a five a.m. wake-up call, and the world’s earliest flight to Paris.

Back home.

Her chest ached. She missed him already.

She hadn’t realized when she sought him out how much she needed this. Contact. Emotion. Passion. She’d been so shut down, but one flip of the switch from him, and the electricity was powered on, bright and shining, lighting up a whole city.

Perhaps that was why she’d searched for him when she went to Vegas. Yes, she had neatly tucked him away when she’d married Julien. She hadn’t thought about Michael at all while she was another man’s wife. But with that bond severed, she was free to roam, to return to wondering what if. To her first love.

Such a big love.

Maybe she’d always been destined to find her way to him again. She’d told herself he was safe, but she wasn’t looking for safety, as she’d quickly learned in a few short days with him. She was on the hunt for connection, for that sliver of a thread between two people. She may not have realized it that afternoon at the Bellagio, but she knew it now, and she had unearthed the mother lode with him.

But tonight she had something new to noodle on. A twist. A surprise.

Something she hadn’t expected.

His sudden fluency.

It perplexed her that he’d talked to her in French, then tried to deny it. There was nothing wrong with him knowing her language, but she was so damn curious for details. How he’d learned it. Why he’d hidden it. Admittedly, it was odd that he hadn’t told her. They’d had so many conversations—especially the one about yogurt—when it would have been natural to say something. Especially since he’d told her years ago that he started taking classes in college. Never had she imagined he’d gone all the way.

But the clock told her it was too late to press.

*

The next morning, she showered, stuffed her toiletries into her suitcase, and checked that her car service was on the way. But she couldn’t seem to let go of Michael’s newfound language proficiency.

Perhaps it was the former journalist in her, the part of her that chased answers, that hunted for truths.

Even as he kissed her hard against the wall of the hotel room, whispering hotly in her ear, “I want to make love to you once more, and to f*ck you at the same time. So you won’t forget me while we’re apart.”

She liked that he used both f*ck and make love, because she’d learned that was exactly what she wanted from him. Both. Especially right now. “You have to know it’s that way for me too. And I would never forget you,” she said.